NETBALL - It's happy 21st for guardian of annual Maori champs

THE date of the Aotearoa Maori Netball Championships is marked in indelible ink on Pauline Wharerau's calendar every year.
This year's event, hosted at the Kensington Courts by Tai Tokerau over Easter, is the 21st she has attended and her involvement over the years has given her an immense amount of satisfaction, whether her role is as a player, coach or manager.
Wharerau, of Ngati Hine descent, was born in Otiria but grew up in Tauranga before eventually moving to Auckland, where she has been based ever since. She now "drives" the Auckland waka, as the president of Tamaki Makaurau Maori Netball Association.
"It's my job to keep an overview on all the teams but we have a strong whanau in Tamaki. I yell and scream at them sometimes but they forgive me once we get here and get started and see the calibre of the netball and the whakawhenonatanga that happens," she says.
"Geographically some of our whanau are isolated and subsequently it's an effort just to get here, especially if the whanau are struggling financially to operate on a daily basis then there is an extra strain [to participate] but the beauty of this kaupapa is that you know from year to year that you're going to be getting together, and people make an extra effort to find a way to get here."
Every tournament brings its own memories but two moments stand out sharply for Wharerau.
The first one was being named in the first ever Maori netball team "way back" in 1988, the second was as the coach of the first ever Aotearoa under-13 team.
"We took a dream team that year that was selected at this tournament and we took them down to play in the national secondary schools competition - an under-13 team playing in the senior A Grade that went through the tournament unbeaten."
The tournament has done wonders for maintaining the sport's predominant position among Maori women. It also occasionally discovers new players and introduces them into the mainstream of the sport.
"Most of the players play mainstream netball as well as Maori netball now but there are a few little gems that don't," says Wharerau.
"This is their only exposure to top level netball and [when they get here] they can graduate to bigger things by finding a good coach or perhaps moving to a bigger centre or club that's able to support them and then they begin to excel and grow as women."
Netball has always been a major part in Wharerau's life and she says it is the same for many of the faces that you'll see at the tournament each year.
"For our whanau it's about Whakawhenonatanga - it's about everyone coming together and doing the best that they can do over two days on the netball court and off it as well - we don't see each other sometimes for a year but each tournament when we come back we remember and acknowledge that this is the one moment in the year that we get together through this kaupapa of Maori netball."
Coming north for the Maori netball tournament this Easter couldn't have made Wharerau happier and she applauds the efforts of the Tai Tokerau organisers.
"It's a huge task to host a tournament, so I take my hat off to any rohe that puts their hand up to host the event, because these things are run on the smell of an oily rag and need the work of volunteers to get by ... The last tournament up here was in Kaikohe 13 years ago and it wonderful to see the Tai Tokerau rohe organise this year's tournament once again."